MHS Robotics Team Places 2nd in State Competition

What kid hasn't spent at least a little bit of his or her childhood playing with remote  control cars, toys, and robots? How many haven't secretly wished they could build a robot of their own that would do exactly what they told it to do?

That's a lot of what robotics is about, and Manchester High School students who join the Robotics Team get the unique opportunity to not only fulfill that childhood wish but also learn quite a bit about science, technology, math and engineering (STEM) in the process.

Robotics at MHS is also a competitive program and this year the school's team placed second in the State competition held at Central Connecticut State University on April 3. About fifty teams participated in the annual event.

"Each year includes a competition and each year the competition changes," said Technology Education Teacher and Team Advisor Chris Prytko.  

As part of the VEX Robotics user community, Prytko said the MHS team obtains the parameters for their robots and game rules from the robotics site, www.vexrobotics.com.  Operated by the Robotics Education and Compettion Foundation, the VEX Robotics Design System provides a classroom program that nurtures and encourages STEM education.

 This year's Vex Robotics competition was called "Round-Up," a game which involved building and programming a robot that can pick up plastic donuts and place them on goal posts around a 12' x 12' playing field.

"Each match consisted of two alliance robots on each side, so there were four robots on the field in each match.  The idea is not to go out and destroy the other robots but to perform a task," said Prytko. "The game breeds congeniality."

"Kids  can take a robotics class or they can learn it on the fly," added Prytko. "They learn skills in computer programming, engineering, and mechanics."

Prytko said Robotics allows kids to find their niche, some leaning more toward the programming end, while others finding they can handle the pressure of driving the robot in competitions.

Joe Kerr, the main designer, builder and driver of his sub-team 822A robot said he gravitated to the role of designer because he wanted to influence the team's robot design and test his own ideas in the competition.

"I gravitated to being the main builder because I wanted to be able to take my designs and change them on the fly," said Kerr. "I really enjoy the building and designing aspect because I enjoy making my designs come to life with my own hands."

Kerr, a Junior, who joined Robotics in his freshman year, said his process is to brainstorm ideas and design the team's robot on paper, then physically build it out of metal and screws.

"The competition in April was fierce and it showed all of our team member's true colors," he said. "Everyone worked extremely hard, because we all wanted to do our best, " he said adding that although their dreams of reaching the world competition in Florida never came to fruition, the hard work everyone put into the robot was well worth it.

"I joined robotics because it seemed really interesting, and I mean, come on, how could I not join a team that builds real robots!" said team member James Nilson. who has been on the team for two years and plans to join again next year. "What I like most about robotics isn't even the actual robots, which are awesome, but the friends I made on the team. They quickly became some of my favorite people in the world. I have learned a ton about engineering as well as programming, which I hope to put to good use in the future," he said.

While Nilson may have a few more years ahead of him before he can pursue a career in such fields, he can feel confident that the skills he is learning in robotics have some concrete present-day applications in the real world the fields of exploration, the military, health care, the automotive-industry, and many other areas.

For example, according to the Vex Robotics site, U. S. roboticists from the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue at Texas A & M University recently completed a five-day underwater search and rescue mission off the coast of Japan that was hard-hit by the recent earthquake and tsunami.

Prytko said next year's Vex Robotics competition, entitled "Gateway" is different from this year's game in that it is a strictly offensive game. Students interested in the robotics program are encouraged to visit www.vexrobotics.com.

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